Ghent

We took a very early train to Ghent and first things first, locked up our stuff in the train station lockers. This will become our M.O.

Ack, I’m already getting tired just writing about this day. Let me tell you, we were both exhausted from the get-go and probably planned too much in too short a time. There was very little conversation. I think we were both saving our energy for moving our feet and blinking.

Ghent is another little Belgium city with cobblestone streets and pretty cathedrals. From the train station, we took a tram into the center of town. Ghent boasts not one, not two, but THREE large and beautiful churches. We saw two of them but only one was memorable because the ceiling was entirely laid with brick. Red brick. It seems a little wrong to me. Like, isn’t the brick is too heavy and small and won’t it just fall out of its mortar and onto the head of an innocent Catholic? Also, isn’t red brick too ordinary for an ornate, Gothic church?

While I pondered these thoughts and chewed European strawberry Mentos, we climbed to the top of a bell tower. By “climbed, “I mean “took the elevator.” There was no way either of us were going to expend energy or muscles on an experience we did yesterday. This bell tower was altogether quite similar to the one in Brugge, only shorter and less full of tourists. Also, it started raining hard while we were up there, so the view was very gray and foreboding. Perfect for our next stop at a medieval castle.

Oh, but first we stopped and got pastries, because what is traveling without eating chocolate-stuffed pastries for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack?

Gravensteen Castle was pretty much in the middle of town, right in between some pretty old guildes’ gables and a lace store. It was made of stone, as castles are, featured a moat and some turrets, and apparently was used as a torturing chamber for many generations. I kid you not, in every single room there was an explanation for a different kind of cruel punishment. Here they did water torture, here they did stretching, here they did public burnings, here they did private burnings, here they did secret burnings, and here are the toilets. (Not as thrilling as our castle hostel, to be quite honest.)